Every year I try to read a few books that I was supposed to read in high school but didn’t. I just finished “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, and chapter 28 had a section that made me think of our horrible failure to be Christ-like in “Jerusalem” and “Samaria”. I’ll type some of it below, and you see if you can read “missions” into it.

“But, suppose we [the South] should rise up tomorrow and emancipate, who would educate these millions, and teach them how to use their freedom? …The fact is, we [the South] are too lazy and unpractical, ourselves, ever to give them much of an idea of that industry and energy which is necessary to form them into men. …and tell me, now, is there enough Christians [in the North]…to bear with the process of their education and elevation? You [Christians in the North] send thousands of dollars to foreign missions; but could you endure to have…your time, and thoughts, and money to raise [the freed slaves] to the Christian standard? That’s what I want to know. If we emancipate, are you willing to educate? [Would you help them with housing, jobs, job training, education for children, etc.?] We [the South] are the more obvious oppressors of the Negro; but the unchristian prejudice of the north is an oppressor almost equally severe.”

The book was published in 1852. How much progress have we made in 163 years?